Review: Rob Henderson - Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class
I first encountered Rob Henderson on Shilo Brooks' podcast OLD SCHOOL. Their conversation focused around George Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London led me to purchase and read Henderson's book. Since watching the OLD SCHOOL podcast I have learned that people are paying attention to Henderson's observations regarding "luxury beliefs" of the affluent that he first witnessed while at Yale for his undergraduate degree. In the book, Henderson discusses "luxury beliefs" and their impact on society. That is a chapter worthy of reflection in itself.
The reason that Henderson can observe these "luxury beliefs" with a critical eye is because of his personal story and the trajectory of his life thus far. As the subtitle indicates, this is a memoir. His biological abandoned his mother while she was pregnant. After Rob was born, his mother became addicted to drugs. At 3 years old, he was taken from his mother and placed in the foster care system. He was in 8 different foster home until he was adopted. At some point after his adoption, his adopted parents divorced and his father cut off all contact with Rob in order to hurt his ex-wife, Rob's adopted mother. Rob was on a path to prison as his internal anger festered and grew and was aided and abetted by his neighborhood friends. The saving grace was his decision to enlist in the Air Force. The military gave him the structure and eventually, the addiction and mental health, that he needed. Fantastically, he used the GI Bill to get into Yale for his undergraduate degree and earned his Ph.D. at Cambridge University.
His story is compelling. Along the way, he describes the many people who spoke with Rob and planted seeds of insight and wisdom throughout his life that Rob would eventually act upon in the military as he sought help and a change of course of his life after the military.
The central point of this book is the absolute necessity for a person to live in an intact family that includes two parents that raise their child/children with love and reasonable discipline. Over and over again, Rob illustrates through personal experience and social science research, the advantage of a loving family. The information that Rob provides through personal experience and through social science studies regarding the trauma and challenges of foster care, adoption, and divorce are eye opening.
I was glad to spend the time and energy to read this book. I will be referring back to it regularly with friends and colleagues for years to come. This will undoubtably become a "classic" in the memoir and social science genres that will last for generations.
If nothing else, if a person reads this book, then finds themselves with children and a desire to divorce or engage in behaviors that lead to the children being taken from himself, Rob's story and the social science studies that he provides ought to give him pause. The vast majority of people who go through what Rob went through do not have "successful outcomes." At the end of the book, he shares what has happened to his friends from the old neighborhood who were in similar situations as himself. Rob appears to be the only one to have made it out with a promising future.
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